


Shackled

by Merkwerkee



Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [28]
Category: Masters of the Metaverse
Genre: Whumptober 2019, during his time in the Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22855120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: Sometimes the easiest way to get in to a place is to be captured. Leaving after you've done that, especially with a VIP, is much harder
Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643020





	Shackled

Chains clinked and rattled across a cold concrete floor.

Bruno shuffled along as best he could, hands cuffed together behind him and a chain between his feet that ran to connect to a larger chain that several other prisoners were also attached to. Political prisoners, most of them; Bruno was head and shoulders taller than all of them and had at least two inches on the largest guard. Most of the prisoners shuffled silently - save for the chains - with their heads bowed, eyes on the floor, and expressions resigned. One or two of them looked mutinously at the guards, eyes darting black hate at them whenever their attention was elsewhere.

It was one of the latter Bruno was interested in; a young man, late teens-early twenties, with a black eye and a terrible tendency to mouth off in Vietnamese. Bruno neither knew nor cared why the Chinese had taken him here; all that mattered was that Colonel Rupert Thornton needed him alive and relatively intact and not in a classified Chinese prison for enemies of the state. Captain Jaxun had provided some sort of intel from the spook Lexington about the kid, and that was as much as Thornton had decided to share. It was all that was relevant, really.

Bruno had gotten himself captured four days ago, on Thornton’s orders; extraction without internal assistance had been deemed too risky, and for whatever reason Bruno had been chosen to go inside. Normally Bruno was the one breaking people out, but orders were orders. He’d already been tortured twice - grueling six-hour sessions both - and currently sported a variety of electrical burns on his face and chest against which the shirt they’d given him itched abominably. He’d fobbed them off with some impressive-sounding but otherwise useless facts about military “operations” in the area - he’d give a lot to be a fly on the wall when the Chinese figured out “Operation Peacock” was what the guys in the motor pool called the Master Sergeant’s repeated and hopeless attempts to woo a local girl he was sweet on - and they’d left him alone to stew for a bit, presumably while they verified his intel.

More fool them.

The first explosion took out the lights, and Bruno threw himself on the largest guard so they both went down in a heap. Pandemonium predictably followed, orders put his hands over his head overlapping orders to lie perfectly still on his stomach overlapping orders to get off the guard and let him breathe. Bruno was spared the choice of which to comply with when a boot met his ribs and forced him to roll away, taking down half the chain of prisoners with him when the slack ran out in the ankle shackles.

Bruno received several prods from the butt of someone’s rifle, trying to get him to untangle and rise so they could hustle them all to cells, before the sharp report of a gun put an end to it. More shots rang out, and the thud of bodies marked the end of most of the shouting. Only more distant cries remained, nearly covering up the whimpering coming from some of the other prisoners. Boots walked themselves up to Bruno and one more shot marked the end of the wheezing from the guard Bruno had landed on before hands undid the cuffs on his wrists and he could push himself to a more upright position.

Lieutenant Roger Elliot met his gaze squarely, expression unreadable, before handing him some keys as the rest of his squad - not one Bruno was familiar with - fanned out behind him into defensive positions. Bruno nodded to the corpse a few inches away before going to work on his ankles. “Did you have to kill him, Sir? I laid him out hard.” Bruno was not a small man, and the Marines had taught him the most efficient ways to use his mass long before they’d sent him to the Asian theater. Something in Elliot’s expression curdled before he smoothed it out again, voice taking on an unpleasant tinge. “Orders, Hamilton; no witnesses. We’ll have to get rid of most of them, too, when you’ve got the one we need secured.”

He nodded at the huddled prisoners as he spoke, and Bruno’s hands stilled on the last shackle. “Sir, with all due respect -” The lieutenant rounded on Bruno before he could get the sentence out. “You have _your_ orders, Sergeant, and I have mine. Extract the prisoner.” His tone was biting, and there was a gleam in his eyes Bruno didn’t like. Bruno looked at the line of chained men; there were eight besides the target, all in various stages of healing and malnutrition. He did some quick mental math, then looked back at the lieutenant. “Sir, yes sir,” he said, and grabbed one of the dead guards’ rifles, ejected the magazine and released the round in the chamber before going along and striking all the ankle chains from the main length.

“What. Are. You. _Doing_?” Elliot hissed, each word cold with a smoking fury. Bruno didn’t pause in what he was doing. “I couldn’t identify the target, sir. I narrowed it down to this group before you arrived, but they did something to my eyes. We take them all back, let HQ decide which one is the right one.” He began unlocking wrist cuffs as he spoke. not daring to turn and look. Elliot puffed out a sharp breath through his nose. “Fine. Your….lack of attention will go in my report. I trust you don’t have any trouble with your eyes while aiming at the enemy?”

The lieutenant’s words were silky and his eyes poison, and Bruno picked up another weapon from the dead guards. “Ready when you are, sir.”


End file.
